Belmont House Hotel (Co Down)

“A charming four star hotel just outside Belfast and one of the finest hotels in Northern Ireland…the perfect base for business and pleasure” claims the website of the Belmont House Hotel. That may well be so, but a read of the history of the Hotel points towards a present use that for anyone not supporting hunting is a little less ‘charming’: “William Anderson, the next owner, was better known as ‘Jumbo’ due to the fact that he weighed 20 stone and was 6ft 2ins tall…In his younger days he hunted with the Iveagh Harriers and the County Down Staghounds, as well as taking part in hare coursing with his greyhound ‘Sir Sankey’…”. The hunting connection is still alive more than a century later, as the Belmont regularly hosts the Iveagh Foxhounds. Fox hunting is still legal in Northern Ireland and with no need to pretend to be ‘trail hunting’ accounts of hunts make for disturbing reading.